Patients with food allergies are especially common in children.Symptoms include itching, hives, vomiting, and diarrhea.In the worst case, he may be shocked and die.The elucidation of the onset mechanism and the development of treatment methods have been delayed, and the burden on children and their families who cannot eat what they want to eat is extremely heavy.

　Previous studies have suggested that an increase in mast cells (a type of immune cell) in the intestine is involved in the onset and progression of food allergies.The research group has a physiologically active substance called "prostaglandin (PG) D2" that is produced in large quantities by mast cells in mice that have developed food allergies, and has the function of suppressing the increase in the number of mast cells themselves. I was discovering that.

　After intraperitoneal administration of albumin contained in egg white to mice, continuous feeding of albumin causes food allergic symptoms (diarrhea and scratching behavior).This time, when the drug "BW2C" that stimulates DP1, which is a PGD245 receptor, was administered daily to the abdominal cavity of mice before feeding albumin, almost no food allergic symptoms appeared and mast cells in the intestinal tract did not increase.In addition, the symptoms were alleviated by feeding ovalbumin multiple times and administering the same drug to mice with food allergic symptoms.This showed that the drug was effective in the prevention and treatment of food allergies.

　If the number of mast cells can be reduced by using the effect discovered this time, it may lead to the development of new treatments and drugs for food allergies.

Paper information:[The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology] Therapeutic potential of D prostanoid receptor 1 signal enhancement in a murine model of food allergy